Penn State Tuition Hike Likely

Without additional state funds, the 19th tuition increase in as many years is likely for students who attend the Pennsylvania State University, the university's president said yesterday.

Bryce Jordan, president of the state's largest university, told the Senate Appropriations Committee that Gov. Dick Thornburgh's budget proposal falls far short of meeting the university's needs.

The university had sought a $32 million increase in state aid, to $203 million. Thornburgh proposed a $7 million hike, to $178.6 million from the current level of $171.6 million.

In the current fiscal year, state funding makes up 23.3 percent of the university's $735.2 million operating budget - down, the university said, from 33.1 percent 10 years ago.

There are more than 62,000 credit students and more than 100,000 non- credit students who attend the university, either at the University Park campus, or 22 other campuses across the state, including Allentown, Schuylkill Haven and Reading.

In the university's annual funding pitch, Jordan told the committeethat state funding for higher education lags behind most other states. He said the per student state funding provided for his university is the lowest in the state and among the lowest in the nation.

The Penn State tuition of $2,760 yearly for resident undergraduates is the highest among the top 40 public universities in the country, according to the university's budget briefing material.

He also told the committee that the increases proposed for Penn State are proportionately less than those proposed for the other two universities who receive large chunks of state funds, Temple and the University of Pittsburgh.

If the Legislature does not add more money to the budget proposal, Jordan said the university would take a two-pronged approach to meeting the shortfall, by cutting activities and raising tuition.

"With the 3 percent (increase in general operating funds), unquestionably, there would have to be an increase in tuition," Jordan said. The university is seeking an 11.5 percent hike in general operating funds and an 18.6 percent in overall funding.

Tuition increased by 7.7 percent in the current fiscal year, after the university's trustees had raised it by 10.8 percent for the 1984-1985 year.

Jordan made a concerted pitch for funding of what he termed the "differential programs," outlined separately from the university's general operating budget.

Differential programs were defined by university spokesman Roger Williams as the research and specialized technological areas that set Penn State and the other research universities apart from the rest of the state funded institutions of higher learning.

"Penn State is different, we're not saying better, different than the state-owned universities," Williams said.

The university had sought $12.3 million in these areas: instrumentation and equipment; engineering program support; agricultural sciences, technology and outreach; deferred maintenance; minority aid; and neuroscience and molecular biology research at the College of Medicine at Hershey.

Thornburgh's budget included partial funding for one of the programs, $1.8 million out of the $2.9 million sought for the agricultural programs.

Jordan said the university has a $12 million to $19 million backlog of deferred maintenance projects, and that the funds sought for minority recruitment are needed for the university's commitment to minorities, a program he said increased minority enrollment by 62 percent in this year's freshman class.

The differential funding approach, Jordan said, is an outgrowth of The Governor's Commission on the Financing of Higher Education, which recommended the approach last year.

Jordan warned the committee that the university is also facing the uncertainty of federal cutbacks, and the impact of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law.

If President Reagan's 1986-1987 budget is implemented as proposed, and Gramm-Rudman is upheld by the courts, Jordan said the university's Agricultural Extension Service programs would be most seriously affected.

"A vast number of personnel would have to be terminated," in the extension program, he said. Williams said later it had been estimated that more than 300 extension staffers, in all counties, stand to lose their jobs due to the federal cutbacks.

Jordan and his entourage received little criticism from the committee. Chairman Richard Tilghman, R-Montgomery, chided Jordan for creating the impression that troubled Cheyney University is better off, financially, than Penn State.

Sen. Patrick Stapleton, D-Indiana, who is president of the Council of Trustees at Indiana University, partof the State System of Higher Education, told Jordan that his priority, this year, was for funds for the state-owned universities.